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WEKU
Scott Neuman

She got famous on YouTube. Now it helps fund her research in quantum gravity

Theoretical physicist and YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder, shown in a photo taken in December at the University of Oxford in England, turned to YouTube "to keep my sanity" during the dark days of the pandemic. (Anthony Sajdler)

The dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic helped transform Sabine Hossenfelder into an unlikely social media star. In the process, she has raised a few eyebrows among her fellow scientists. She's also made an important discovery that just might bode well for her future research.

Hossenfelder turned to YouTube "to keep my sanity" when she was unable to go to her office at Germany's Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. Actually, you might say she returned. She'd started a channel in 2007 but just hadn't been very active. Then came a rebranding — Science without the gobbledygook. Today, she has 1 million subscribers (up from 50,000) and also enjoys a strong and growing contingent of Patreon supporters.

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